Formal rationality,substantive justice,and discrimination

This study examines the extent to which a juvenile court uses legal, substantive, and discriminatory criteria in assessing dispositions. The indicators of legal criteria are the seriousness of offense and the extent of prior arrest record, of substantive criteria, the presence of family and school problems, and of discriminatory criteria, race and social class. An examination of the dispositions accorded to a sample of 464 fourteen and fifteen year old arrestees in one juvenile court shows that, while discrimination in sentencing is minimal, the court is more likely to use substantive than formal criteria of decisionmaking. These findings suggest that studies of the juvenile court should be reoriented away from their traditional focus on legal and extralegal determinants of decision making toward a focus on substantive criteria.This study was supported by Ford Foundation under grant no. 73-96. We are grateful to Jackson Toby, principal investigator, for his aid in all phases of this study. William Smith and Antonia Steegen provided invaluable research assistance. This is a thoroughly revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, November, 1977.     

Determinate sentencing, formal rationality, and khadi justice in Maine: An application of Weber's typology

In the 1980s over twenty-five jurisdictions, including Maine, changed their sentencing policies. Nevertheless, only a few states approximated the goal of determinancy proposed by advocates of reform. Recent extensions of Weber's work on law finding to the area of punishment provide a means to reconceptualize the problem addressed by advocates of determinacy. This article refocuses debates about sentencing reform in terms of Weber's concept of formal rationality.It explains why one state—Maine—did not reduce judicial disparities and why determinacy failed to be introduced. Sentences from an experiment conducted among all members of Maine's judiciary are compared with guideline sentences in two states—Minnesota and Pennsylvania. This comparison clearly supports national criticism of Maine's failure to reduce judicial disparities in sentences. It is concluded that widespread sentencing disparities in Maine result from a criminal code legitimating substantively irrational decisionmaking or khadi justice. No attempt was made to move toward a formally rational system advocated by proponents of determinacy.